


Holy.

by a_wonderingmind



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Character Study?, F/M, Mild anger, Pining, daniel thinks, decisions eventually, mild kinda describes s1 Daniel up to the last few eps really, mild self hate?, s1 canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 20:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11744250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_wonderingmind/pseuds/a_wonderingmind
Summary: Holy. Not quite holy, he thinks - but the girl on the pedestal comment had stung.





	Holy.

**Author's Note:**

> this is another one of my self challenged prompts, I might add a peggy version of it if the muse co-operates idk, we'll see xD  
> prompt was 'holy'  
> hope y'all enjoy!

Holy. Not quite holy, he thinks - but the girl on the pedestal comment had stung. He shouldn't really still be thinking about it. Perhaps he was still only thinking about it because it was like pouring alcohol on an open wound - it stung because it was so raw. He thought back to exactly what she had said:  
“I’ve never been anything more than what each of you have created… a girl on a pedestal,”  
She had looked straight at him through the glass when she said that. She was always so direct, and she knew unapologetically what she was about. She was the great Peggy Carter, she had worked with the 107th and Captain America, and although she didn’t know it, was part of the reason he stood here today - so excuse her if, yes, he did put her on a pedestal, if he did think of her as hero who could do no wrong in her own way. He could see her in his mind’s eye - being ‘one of the guys’ but so uniquely Peggy at the same time, not taking crap from anyone who looked at her differently because of who she was.

Perhaps that’s what he saw in her eyes when she looked at him sometimes - not pity, like the other guys who saw a man missing a piece, less than whole or an oddity. Perhaps it was because of her own experiences that when she looked at him she saw… a kindred spirit, maybe, or an outsider like her. She looked at him with a warmth, a compassion and a normality that, even for the briefest second, made him feel ordinary. He would do anything to feel ordinary again.

Sometimes he had felt like he belonged on the outside - his leg is only a hindrance and it marks him as other - different from ‘them’. In his darkest moments, though he would hardly admit it to himself now, he had wondered if he was even deserving of love - he couldn’t do all the things a husband did; he couldn’t hold a tray to bring his wife breakfast in bed on a lazy Sunday, he could barely dance, let alone play football with his son in the back yard, he wouldn’t be able to catch his daughter when she flung herself at him with arms wide. He had thought himself damaged goods, and maybe a little niggling voice still reminded him of that every once in a while, though he tended to want to forget that as quickly as possible. He tried not to show it, but running (or in his case crutching) after suspects was sometimes painful - he would get home and his puckered stump would be bruised and blistering from where the ill-fitting prosthesis would rub the wrong way. Sometimes he would he would sit and trace the still sensitive scars where his knee should have been, and feel the callouses on his hands from where the fabric on the handle had worn thin through to the wood underneath. It had been there that he had felt most alien, like he deserved the silent, ocular dismissals of his co-workers (because they would never dare to say what they were thinking out loud to a disabled man). He would feel so broken as he would sit there and stare at his half a leg. Peg didn’t stare at those parts of him, although sometimes he would he would catch her staring in his general direction, a pensive look on her face and eyes on his, telling infinite stories. If eyes were windows to the soul, then sometimes the shutters would open for the tiniest moment and he could see entire galaxies - empathy, and genuine respect, and it made him feel ordinary and special all at once. It made him feel… normal.

It felt good to be treated as if there was nothing wrong with him again. Perhaps, yes, he decided, when this was all over he would ask her out for that drink he declined just after they came back from Byelorussia. Just then, the person currently occupying his thoughts approached his desk with a long-suffering sigh.  
“Thompson has sent me on coffee rounds again - do you want some?” she asked, unable to keep the tedium-induced edge off her voice. He looked up at her with an apologetic smile.  
“Yes, please. Shall I start the percolator while you collect the rest of the orders?”  
She looked at him sideways, as if she hadn’t been expecting the offer of help and smiled. Oh, he would do anything to be the cause of that smile.  
“Yes that would be lovely,” she started to walk away, but turned back. “Daniel?”  
He looked up. “Hm?”  
“Thank you.”  
He grinned.


End file.
